Thanks Wendy I am very glad someone liked it. I suppose I may as well get all the non-tiki out of my system so to speak... I had thought I posted this before, but it doesn't look like it. This was for a art show previous to the current one, with the theme of "playing around". I decided it would be fun to paint a intricate 1800's ballgown and did some research, this one is mostly based on a dancing style gown, but with a few things thrown in like the roses on her shoulders. It is a bit of social commentary on the time period as well: if you look closely you will see that things are not quite "right" with the pinwheel so it kind of wraps around her ear making it so she cannot speak nor hear correctly, the place many women of that time period found themselves in. That is Oregon's Mt. Hood in the background, I wanted to try my hand at doing a diminishing atmosphere background like Leonardo Da Vinci is famous for... mixed results there mostly due I think to the too bright colors I will have to try it again sometime.

Here is the really funny irony I did not realize until I was done: it greatly resembles in tone and style a certain stretching painting in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion attraction...completely unintentional, but somewhere in the back of my brain it must have been lurking.

The "Voyage to the Centre of the Earth" conglomeration is very cool. Great concept and nicely done. Jules Verne was a favorite of mine years ago and I read everything of his I could get my hands on.
_________________When you hurry through life, you just get to the end faster.
Pirate Ship Tree House

Howdy Mike, thanks for taking a peek and commenting...been a while hasn't it? Yeah really Jules Verne is actually my favorite author, but I have to wonder what kind of horribly wrong versions I have been reading over the years. I found out the large majority of his books have suffered badly in translations, for instance unless you have the special edition of 20,000 Leagues that was re-translated in the 70's by a small publishing house, you are missing an entire chapter and quite a number of paragraph passages. This is mainly because the original translator had religious biases against some of what Verne wrote (specifically dealing with the Captain Nemo character) so he just left them out. Plus many of his lesser known works have either never had English translations, or only had one from the original print and never went back into print again. He wrote a lot more than most people realize, and not all of his books were "Les voyages fantastique".

I came very close as a joke of sticking a primitive tiki idol in there, you know like it fell down into the bowels of the earth along with all the prehistoric fossils and such, but I knew I would get too many people asking about it and didn't want to ruin the theming.

I guess the reason "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is my favorite book, is because it is so highly optimistic in attitude despite all the terrible misfortunes that happen the Professor never gives up. Plus it is the one book of the "Fantastiques" series, that really hasn't been fully proven wrong or right through actual real exploration. We know the kind of submarine Verne envisioned is mostly possible, same thing with traveling around the world in 80 days, and rockets to the moon. But we still have yet to have mankind make that real attempt at penetrating the mysteries of the deep earth in the same way envisioned by Verne. I suppose this book really is the reason that I came very close to trying to get an archaeologist degree, everyone presumes these days it's because of Indiana Jones but to me this book has one of the first pop culture archaeologist heroes. I have to wonder too if Spielberg and Lucas didn't have this in mind as well, especially in consideration of some scenes in the 1950's movie adaption. How they find the correct tunnel to go through with the marking of the sunrise is HIGHLY reminiscent of the map room scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark (even the music is VERY similar), and later on there is a scene where there is an underground earthquake and a rolling boulder chases our heroes down a tunnel very much like the opening of Raiders. Hmmmmm....

Alright now the next art piece should be something tiki, or poly pop to get things back on track so keep an eye out... well not literally that could hurt.

Well finally back to something tiki-ish, my entry into the art swap with a Pele/volcanoes theme. This is my first velvet painting attempt, and boy have I learned a lot. First off I had no idea the absolutely incredible subtleties you can get with shadowing on velvet. This experience really has caused me to re-think how I do my canvas paintings, I think I can do more realism and depth with shadows if I start with a darkly painted canvas and will try it out on the next canvas I paint. I have so far thoroughly enjoyed velvet painting even though it is one of the most unforgiving mediums I have worked with. I think even watercolor and pen and ink have a bit more leeway for mistakes than velvet does, at least you can go back and go over mistakes to some degree but not with velvet...no sir! I also was not prepared for the numerous layers you have to build up of the paint onto the velvet, nor the way you have to blend the paint into the fibers of the velvet. It's been a fun learning experience, and I am quite sure I will be doing more velvet in the future.

First off, I got a bunch of photos together online for reference of magma, volcanoes and females (particularly female hands in the right pose) plus some hula dancers for good measure. Then I sketched it into my own composite in white pencil directly on the velvet. I re-sketched about 3 times, I found out you can "erase" the lines if you brush the velvet with a hair brush.

Then came the first stage of painting. You really have to sort of work/rub the paint into the velvet on the first pass, more less putting down a workable layer for the darker/thicker areas of paint. Subtle blends can be gently rubbed with the brush into the velvet for softer shadows, but it is easy to overdo this and use too much paint. Once that paint is on there you have to work with it right away as it "sets" into the hair like fibers of the velvet and once it is on too long you really cannot rub it in any further. You have to work carefully with velvet; when I paint normally I invariably find I have dabbed an elbow or part of my hand in paint and accidentally dragged it on the canvas creating tiny blots or smears. I can take care of that pretty easily on canvas, but no way in hell can you do it on velvet unless you rework the composition. It is a very fun medium, but also a very exacting one. I am sure over time I will get better with it, and I guess for my first velvet painting this didn't turn out too bad.

It is not quite finished yet, I have another photo I will post soon that shows I did a bit more on it already (such as putting in her eye and more shadowing etc). She's getting there.

Well I finally finished Pele. Not entirely happy with all the anatomy, I see now the head is a bit too big for that body and something about the turn of the body and the breasts doesn't look right. However for my first black velvet painting, it's pretty good considering how unforgiving the medium is. I am very glad I got to to do a volcanic theme for my first one as I feel it really suits the black velvet well. I have learned a thing or two about making frames and stretching fabric over it so hopefully the next one should be a little less loose. Think I may have to invest in one of those canvas gripper tools if I keep doing these to make things easier. I have been thinking a lot about my next piece, and I keep coming back the idea that the old Mai Kai sign I wanted to paint all lit up would be perfect for velvet. I am halfway toying with the idea of doing the same thing in a regular painting as well so I can see them side by side, but I have never been one to want to repeat myself so I am not sure about that. I also could see painting some Poly pop matchcovers in velvet ( I collect matchbooks/matchcovers).

Photographing or digitally documenting paintings is very hard to do, and black velvet makes it twice as hard. I have not yet figured out that magical way of capturing my paintings where they look at least pretty close to the original, even when I plop them on the scanner something just doesn't look right. So below you will see all my struggles with photographing this velvet Pele, granted I should have some kind of better lighting but ALL the lighting in our house has a horrible yellow tinge to it. One of these days I will figure something out to do this better, meanwhile on with the show...

This first one I used photoshop to try and get the colors close as I could to the original, but I am not sure how well it worked out.
This one is too light and the lights make the colors "off"
I tried a different setting on the camera, I think it was for candles or night time and it made it too dark, but the colors are a bit closer
Sometimes I have noticed if I zoom in on something it captures better color and detail so I tried that with this one. The detail is nice and the colors are not too bad, but they are off.
Finally, here is a close up of my favorite part on this painting....wait for it.....
THE HAND. Yes, I know most who know me would say the boobs, the breasts, the headlights, American Apple pies... you get the idea...I do seem to have a bit of a "fixation" ...but no I really liked how the shadowing and form came out on the hand on this. Which is a big deal for me because I have really struggled for many, many years to get my hands even halfway decent looking, its been one of the banes of my existence as an artist so I am very pleased to see some improvement.

Well kids, until next time under the pineapple sunshine it's time for the tiger to bid adieu.

Congrats on the learning curve, I think it turned out very well - first velvet or not. Seems like photographing art is harder than creating it. Did you try full shade outside? I think I have heard cloudy days work well too but we only get about 5 cloudy days a year _________________When you hurry through life, you just get to the end faster.
Pirate Ship Tree House

Thanks Mike and Wendy. I have not tried to do outside photographing yet, here in Oregon it is overcast most of the time, but quickly followed by rain. When the sun does come out it REALLY comes out so there is no inbetween. Actually I was wondering if I got one of those portable light photo box things I think I saw you using Wendy, if that might work out better? How much are they and where would I get one?

Don't worry Wendy I am not going to stop at the one velvet piece, I think I am pretty set on doing the old Mai Kai billboard sign at night in velvet but I have to figure out a way to transfer complicated image outlines to velvet. On a normal canvas or wood panel I would use something like carbon paper and trace, but I am not sure what to do here. Sometimes it takes a while for me to figure out the mechanics of how to get something done. Case in point, I have another Poly pop project that I am starting to pick back up now which I previously abandoned (you might remember it: my table top miniature golf idea) because I could not figure out how to accomplish it (some of it I am still working out, but almost there). I'll be posting progress on that one soon as the real work starts again (I have to tear apart what I had already made, I was going to make a mold but its just too expensive for the size I need so I am just going to make original parts in sculpey and piece it together instead).

Those light boxes work real well for ceramics, they eliminate the shadows and the refections. But I don't know how well they would work for paintings. I really think you should try outside on a cloudy day (but not a rainy day )

I'm pretty sure I have seen white carbon paper, that might help you transfer your image?
_________________When you hurry through life, you just get to the end faster.
Pirate Ship Tree House

I just today got a studio art space where I can concentrate on doin' nothin' but art with no distractions. Been looking for months and finally landed a place that fits my needs, so that means more poly pop painting goodness will be happening shortly. I will start moving in next week! I am ecstatic with joy and cannot wait to blaze a trail of art.

Right on tigertail!
Every artist needs a studio
to have everything organized and at the ready
for wherever your brain wants you to go!
and you're right...with a studio
there is an obligation to do MORE!
Congratulations Man!
Expect to see some more velvets in the next few weeks!
and a miniature tabletop golf course,of course!

I am pretty much moved into the new art studio space thanks to my pop. It felt so strange to have a space devoted just for me to be doing art, a space that was deafening in it's silence. I kept feeling like this was just too weird and was somewhat "paralyzed" with what to do next, staring at the walls for a few hours. Finally I decided I should just do some piece of art to get used to the place and commemorate it's "opening". So I did a hula Halloween art card as the first piece of art in the new space. The piece is Pen and ink and colored pencil. Am thinking about making a bunch of these and selling them on ebay, I have never really tried to sell ACEO's much before (stands for "artist cards editions and originals", baseball card size pieces of original art. Evidently there are quite a number of collectors of these things out there.) Not sure how I like the colored pencil though, I think if I do more it will be pen and ink and watercolors.